What is the context?
This verse belongs to Jesus' answer to the Sadducees in Matthew 22:23–33. They deny resurrection and propose a woman whose seven successive marriages would create a problem if raised life simply continued those marriages. Jesus first corrects that assumption, then points them to God's words at the burning bush.
In Exodus 3:1–8, the God who calls Moses identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and promises to rescue His people. Those patriarchs had died, yet God still identifies Himself in relation to them. Jesus brings that continuing relationship into His answer about resurrection.
The surrounding verses keep the subject clear: Jesus is teaching about God's power to raise the dead. In the related account, Luke 20:37–38 explicitly connects Moses' burning-bush passage with their being raised and alive to God.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Christians commonly understand this verse to affirm God's continuing relationship with His people beyond death, within Jesus' defense of resurrection. Wesley on 22:32 draws out their continuing life before God, while the US Catholic bishops' note on 22:31–32 keeps that relationship within the passage's hope of bodily resurrection.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
The God who remembers His covenant does not lose His people when their earthly lives end. Hebrews 11:8–16 describes the patriarchs dying in faith while looking toward the home God prepares, and says He is not ashamed to be called their God. The passage brings the same relationship into view alongside a hope that reaches beyond death.
1 Corinthians 15:20–26 connects the resurrection of those who belong to Christ with His victory over death itself. God's relationship with His people belongs within that larger purpose of bringing them into life through His risen Son.
What is our position?
Our existing study, Who is The Angel of the Lord?, identifies the One who appears and speaks from the burning bush in Exodus 3 as the Son before His human birth. It notes that Jesus quotes this very scene when answering the Sadducees. That is the study's conclusion about the Exodus passage; Jesus' immediate point here is God's relationship with the living and the reality of resurrection.